Madeleine L'Engle is one of my all time favorite authors. Both her characters and storylines are thoughtful, well written and intriguing. She writes books that I can read again and again. This particular novel is one of my absolute favorites and I have enjoyed it both as a written book and as an audio too. ( )

I like Poly least of L'Engle's female leads, even Suzy, and that's saying quite a lot. ( )

L'Engle deals frankly with teenaged sexuality and sexual orientation, which makes this a maturer book than many of her others written for young adults. It's a bit uneven, though, as Polly is both an old soul and really naive, which makes for some readerly whiplash. And the book suffers from the main-character-lust problem: it seems that even though Polly is this major introvert who is a bit of a know-it-all and not real great at social cues, all these guys just want her all.the.time, and trust me, it doesn't work like that. And let's be honest: Renny is a poophead. The way he treats Polly in the end is both poor taste and bad judgment on his part. She's 16 and doesn't know better. He's a medical student and absolutely does. The end. ( )

Third in the 'O'Keefe' series narrated by the teenage Polly. In this book she is almost seventeen, and beginning to explore adult life and feelings. She is alone in Athens when we meet her, clearly upset about something which is not revealed until about half way through the book.

There are a lot of flashbacks as Polly's thoughts and daydreams re-live some of her experiences in the past few years. Could be confusing, but it's very well written and I found it almost impossible to put down once I'd started, as more and more of the 'past' storyline is unfolded at just the right pace.

Some controversial and 'adult' issues are explored, with a sensitivity and awareness that would have been unusual in the 1980s when the book was written. I wouldn't recommend this for anyone below the age of about fifteen; it's far more thoughtful with less tension than the earlier two books in the series. ( )

Oh, I remember this one now. I liked it as a kid, but now I'm like, "ohhh, some of these elements are fairly problematic now and I didn't realize." Would probably need to do some critical re-reading here. ( )